Goals

Klaus spotted Caroline sitting beside the window, her blonde hair aglow to gold under the sunlight, and her cobalt eyes electric with joy as they skimmed across the lines of worn pages she cradled in her hands. He watched her by the doorway as a soft smile painted her lips, and she let out a laugh every now and then. Klaus realized he must've been staring for a very long time when she looked up and returned his stare with a grin, and waved her hand over to him, signaling to Klaus that he should snap out of it and go to her before he appeared overly creepy.

He sat down on the cool chair across from her and felt shivers run down his spine, and he wasn't too sure if it was because of the cold metal of his seat, or because of how he felt under her gaze.

"Hey." She said as she folded up the pages and slipped them into the pocket of her shirt, just over her heart. "What're you up to?"

Shit. What was Klaus doing before he stopped and decided to stare at Caroline…? Oh, that's right, he was looking for Caroline.

But he couldn't tell her that.

"I was looking for Kol."

It was the first thing that came to mind, probably because that used to be something he spent half his time doing before he got put in the institution. The other half was spent looking for Rebekah. God, how troublesome younger siblings were, especially the rebellious ones that liked to elope or fly to other continents where their favorite actress is filming.

"I needed to talk to him about the family visits."

Caroline nodded understandingly, and then glanced around the room. "Oh, well, last time I checked he was talking to Bonnie, but it appears they've gone somewhere else…" Her voice trailed off as her eyes turned thoughtful, her brows furrowed, and she bit her lip, seemingly thinking hard.

She was adorable. "Yes. I've noticed that Kol has seemed to take quite a liking to Bonnie." Klaus noted, rubbing his chin. "But then again, Kol takes a liking to most women, I'm surprised he hasn't harassed you yet."

Tipping her head back and letting out a tinkling laugh, Caroline slapped him on the knee gently, and shook her head, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "He actually did already, a few days ago he tried singing 'Sweet Caroline' to me, like I haven't heard that a million times before." She rolled her eyes and smirked. "Like come on, if you're going to try and pick someone up in a situation as unique as this one, you gotta have a bit of originality, you know what I mean?"

Klaus grinned, not at his brother's cheesy pick up, but at Caroline's laugh, which was musical and as beautiful as she was. He felt like a sailor at the will of a siren's charms with her, but he didn't mind one bit. "Kol tries as hard as he can to shove the quotes of some actress into his every day life, he doesn't understand the concept of 'originality'."

But she waved her hand about dismissively and looked at him. "It doesn't matter anyway, he's not really my type."

He felt his heart flutter slightly in his chest and his breath hold in his throat. Yet he tried as he could to maintain his cool demeanor as he leaned forward with smoldering eyes, and gazed at her. "What is your type then, love?" He asked, his voice deep like thick honey.

When he saw her face slightly redden at his his advances, a smirk made it's way onto his lips, and he knew his mission was accomplished, as he was obviously her type if he could get her all bothered like that. Caroline took a few deep breaths as she appeared to ponder on this, and Klaus held his own in anticipation as he waited for her reply.

She shrugged nonchalantly.

"I don't actually know." She replied breezily, running her hand through her golden mane. "I mean, I've been in places like this since I was 16, so I haven't really been able to get on the 'dating scene'."

Klaus' lips twitched. "Well I hope that you one day find that special someone who can bring you onto the dating scene for the first time." With that, he closed the space between them as he leaned forward, and pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, the tips of his fingers grazing against her cheekbone. Her skin was soft, and her cheeks reddened further. She was fucking adorable. Klaus knew he was in trouble, he knew he wasn't meant to be talking to other people, he knew he got too attached too quickly, he knew that it was always his downfall, he knew that he always ended up abandoned and alone and achingly empty… But Caroline; she was different. He knew it already. He knew that she wouldn't leave him feeling like that.

He could see her still under his touch, and her eyes widened. His heart lodged itself in his throat and he felt like he couldn't breathe, because he knew she felt it as well, their connection. Yet despite all of that, Caroline maintained a calm façade, cool under pressure, giving him a small smile and leaning back in her chair casually. "I don't know…" She started, swallowing, and regaining her wits. "I'm thinking I might just end up a celibate. You know, maybe become a woman of God."

Unsure of whether she was teasing or not, Klaus nodded, feeling his stomach drop at her statement. Feeling unable to even say anything, he peered at her curiously, hoping that she was bloody well joking. However, he got his answer soon enough when she rolled her eyes, a lazy half smile painting her lips, as she placed her hand over his, and squeezed.

"I'm kidding."

A blatantly relieved grin broke out across Klaus' face.

"I love nice clothes too much, and I plan on moving to California once I get out of this place." She shook her head and grimaced. "I'm pretty sure there aren't many nunneries by the beach."

The grin on Klaus' face turned into a smirk, and he perked his brows up. Stretching his legs out in front of him, Klaus prepared to bring out his secret weapon. "California? Oh, hm…." He pondered, tearing his eyes away from her suddenly curious ones, and pretending to he extremely interested in what was going on outside the barred window, or rather, what wasn't going on. But whatever, he needed to remain nonchalant.

"What?" She asked, her voice pitching as she sat up straighter in her chair, looking to him urgently. "'California? Oh, hm' what?"

Biting back the ever-growing smirk from his lips, Klaus rested his head in his hand, still refusing to meet her stare. He gave a small shrug. "Oh, it's just, my family has a beach house in Santa Monica. We hardly go there, considering we live in the Hamptons, so it's empty throughout the year…" Klaus remarked casually, quickly flicking his eyes towards her to gauge her reaction.

She furrowed her brows and tilted her head at him, looking like a confused puppy and one hundred times more adorable. "What are you talking about?" Caroline questioned, seemingly not understanding what he was hinting at.

"I'd love to take you there, once we get out of here." He elaborated, now fully turning to her so he could see her fully. Much to his dismay, instead of her face breaking out into pure happiness like he had hoped, instead of her letting out a gleeful laugh, and instead of her leaping up and flinging her arms around him, Caroline instead just shifted in her seat awkwardly. An uncomfortable expression pained her face, and she looked down at her hands, her fingers playing with a loose piece of thread from her clothing.

"Oh, Klaus that's… That's so, uh, kind of you…" She started stiffly, giving him a pitiful smile, and his stomach once again dropped along with face. "But… Um, yeah I mean. There's still a long way to go until… I uh am better. We'll see."

Her eyes peered up, taking in what Klaus was trying to make a stoic expression to hide his devastation, because he had once again, moved too fast. He was acting impulsively, he was over sharing and going too far, just like he normally did. Except this time it wasn't because he was too drunk to know what he was doing, it was because he thought she was special. Klaus had crossed the line but she wasn't following, he couldn't go back, it was too late.

"Oh look there's Bonnie, with Kol!" Caroline blurted out shrilly, and Klaus looked across the room to where she was pointed, and true enough, it was his brother, the person who he was supposedly looking for before he got caught up in a conversation with Caroline. Kol was towering out the small brunette, a serious expression on his face as he nodded down at her.

Klaus assumed the unusually serious expression on Kol's face was because the girl had just rejected his advances, and Klaus knew how much Kol had been gunning out for her, but then Bonnie took Kol's hand in her own and squeezed it. Always having been a good lip reader, as you needed to be when your family was constantly talking about you behind your back, Klaus could see she was saying, 'thank you'. Kol responded with 'I'm just helping you with what needs to be done'. Bonnie gave him a small smile, and left the room without a second glance.

"Well that escalated faster than I thought it-" Caroline started, trying to break the tension between them, but Klaus was already standing and moving towards his brother across the room, ignoring the what the blonde was saying. He knew he would talk to her later (they had all the time in the bloody world, after all) but he needed to discuss with his brother about the thing that apparently needed to be done.

Grabbing a taken off guard Kol by the shoulder, he steered him towards the empty sofa and shoved him down, crossing his arms and glaring at his brother.

"What is it that needs to be done?"

Kol feigned innocence, furrowing his brows and resting his hand over his heart. "Why, Nik, whatever are you going on about?" He questioned, fluttering his eyelashes with a naivety to his voice that screamed to Klaus that he knew exactly what he was 'going on' about.

Klaus just rolled his eyes, bored of his brother's antics. "I saw you talking to Bonnie, I saw her take your hand-"

"-Why don't we talk about more interesting things, Nik?" Kol cut in hastily, the guiltless look on his face quickly twisting into a devilish smirk. With his eyes turning sly and his voice deep and knowing, wiggling his eyebrows up at Klaus, Kol continued on, "I saw you talking to Caroline."

Klaus was almost disturbed, not at the fact that Kol saw him talking to Caroline and seemingly knew of his attraction towards her, but that Kol had just diverted the conversation away from himself. Kol, the person who wrote a 2000 word essay about himself under the title of 'Who is your hero?'; Kol, who threw himself a surprise birthday party; Kol, who had a cardboard cutout of himself in his bedroom, had changed the conversation subject from himself to Klaus. And his reason why was that talking about Klaus was more 'interesting'.

Something was definitely up.

"Kol what are you scheming with that girl?" Klaus heatedly asked his brother, who was in the middle of analyzing Caroline's body language towards him. "Because I know it's something, and-"

"-Ah! Look, it's Tyler! There you are!" Kol exclaimed zealously, jumping up, a face splitting grin on and his eyes comically wide. He slapped his hand on Klaus' shoulder, quickly side stepping him and backing away. "Well, Nik, I always love our talks. Lets have one next week, shall we?"

Klaus was speechless as he watched his brother run off, out the door towards Tyler, who appeared to have left the room the minute he saw Kol was present. It was a curious thing indeed, to see his brother happily run off to go spend time with the roommate he had spent the last week and a half bitching about.

It was a curious thing to see Kol actually socializing with Bonnie and Tyler at all. They were the kind of people Kol would call peasants attempt to keep at least a 'five meter' distance from at all times as he could not risk contracting 'lower class' diseases like the common cold. They were the kind of people who actually appeared to have morals; something Kol never even tried having.

And yet, it seemed that after only a week, Kol was already changing. He was talking to others in a way that seemed to be civil, and he was almost being empathetic towards other people's feelings. It seemed that after only ten days in the damn place that Kol was already changing. And Klaus wasn't sure if he liked his new brother or not. Morality on Kol was a scary thing, and he most definitely didn't want anther Elijah or Finn in the family. Klaus just hoped that Rebekah stuck with her selfish ways, they may have been annoying, but at least she wasn't a stick in the mud like Freya was.

Feeling a tug on his sleeve, Klaus realized he had zoned out for a few minutes, so he turned around and found that Caroline was looking up at him, slightly embarrassed. "Yes?" He asked, his tone more bitter than he intended.

"Listen, Klaus, I'm sorry that I-" She started, her tone apologetic, and her face downcast. Klaus felt guilt explode inside of him. He knew he was being ridiculous for being annoyed with her, he had jumped up at the opportunity to take her away a little too fast, and he knew that he had the tendency to move a little faster than others.

"-Caroline, it's fine." He interrupted, his tone soft as he smiled down at her, sympathetically. "We hardly know each other and I really shouldn't have put you on the spot like that. The only one at fault here is me."

Caroline bit her her lip and looked at him thoughtfully as she hugged herself. He held her stare, finding himself not able to look away from her in a way that he never had before. Klaus decided that despite her rejection, she was truly different, because she wasn't scared off. He felt the spark, and he knew that she felt it too. It was impossible to miss. Letting out a soft sigh, Caroline opened her mouth and started forming words, but before she could make a sound, she was interrupted by the sound of the cretin's voice.

"Excuse me! Excuse me!" Matt Donovan stood in the doorway and yelled out through his cupped hands into the recreation room. "Anyone in my group could you please follow me! We have a group session!"

As the other patients continued on doing as they were, Klaus rolled his eyes, and Caroline gave him a small shrug. Together, along with most of the other people in their group, they followed their blonde group therapist into the pits of hell.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"So, just in case you were wondering, we're getting an intercom set up tomorrow." Matt started, chuckling to himself. "That way, I won't have to shout, cause I'm pretty sure I'd lose my voice by next week if I did."

Everyone in the circle stared back at him blankly.

"So…" Coughing awkwardly, he glanced around the circle. "How have you been sleeping Stefan?"

The man looked at him with heavy lidded, tired eyes. "I haven't." He replied, his voice flat.

Matt started, "Is that because you were sleeping in a new bed or-"

Damon interrupted, however. "-Uh, NO. It's because he's a fucking insomniac."

"Damon." Matt stated calmly. "Can we please remember the 'no interruptions' rule?"

He huffed however, rolling his eyes. "I'll start remembering the rule once we actually have a purpose to fulfill in these torture sessions." He muttered dramatically.

Clapping his hands together, Matt smiled. "That's exactly what I was about to get to, thank you for bringing that up, Damon." He beamed, but Damon just scoffed, and crossed his arms. "I want to go around the circle, and for everyone to name one thing they want to have improved upon at the end of this month."

Looking to his left, he found Caroline, one of the tamer, more polite patients. He sighed with relief; she was a good person to start with. Standing, Caroline stepped forward slightly. "By the end of the month, I want to have not purged once." She smiled proudly, and sat back down.

"I think that's a very good, and realistic goal to start with Caroline, something you can definitely achieve." He encouraged, nodding towards the next patient.

Elena stood. "Honestly, I feel fine. No. I feel great. I've only been here ten days, but I've met people who I would call my best friends," she smiled brightly as she glanced between Bonnie and Caroline. "And I've developed good relationships with the others. This place really is amazing. I think I've finally found my fit here, and I don't think I've ever felt steadier than I ever have before. So I want that to be my goal." Elena finally announced after raving on, a face splitting grin widening her lips. "I want to stay feeling the way I am. Because it's fantastic.'

After peering at her curiously, suspicious about her animated behavior, Matt nodded, deciding he'd talk to her about it later. "I think that's a good start Elena, and I'm glad that you think you've found somewhere you can finally move forward." Matt responded, and she nodded back enthusiastically.

Beside Elena, Damon coughed loudly, gaining the attention of everyone. "Where's the little sociopath?" He inquired loudly, nodding to the empty chair.

"Kai has transferred wards after the, uh, incident." Matt replied awkwardly, as he frankly didn't exactly know where Kai was. Dr. Maxfield said that they were dealing with him, and not much else. But he knew that they would want to know what was happening with Kai, so he decided to make something up. "We're doing some more behavioral analysis on him, but he should be back here by the next group session, unless we notice something." He was acutely aware of the way Bonnie's whole body hardened in her seat, and how her face darkened, when he mentioned Kai's return. Matt hoped that Kai wouldn't return, as he was too much of trouble for the other patients.

"The incident being when he attacked Judgy, or did he assault someone else?" The raven-haired man snarked back. "Because I heard about his track record and-"

Elena kicked Damon in the shin, and he stopped in his sentence. Furrowing his brows, Matt had to bite his tongue and remind himself that the man had a mental illness and if he was truly competent of what he was saying he wouldn't be such an asshole. He breathed in and out slowly, and then turned to Damon. "We are meant to be setting goals for ourselves, but I think I can set one for you, and that is to be more considerate of other peoples feelings, and not calling them names, or interrupting them when they are speaking. What about that?"

"I was about to say the exact same thing, Donovan." He replied, trying to hide his annoyance, pursing his lips.

"My goal is to actually care about anything that happens here." Hayley blurted out. It seemed as though she was trying very hard to have the appearance of not caring. Or maybe she was actually that way. Matt wasn't going to point anything out though, because he knew she already felt alienated enough, he didn't want to further that. Instead, he just nodded at her, and turned to the next person.

Tyler swallowed, and his eyes quickly flickered around the room. "My goal is to not have any massive violent outbursts." It seemed easy enough, and despite what he knew most people in the group thought of Tyler, Matt thought him to be probably one of the tamest people with intermittent explosive disorder he had ever encountered. Matt had truly met some animals though.

"Good one mate." Kol replied, air-nudging Tyler in the side. "I wish I could come up with gold like that, but honestly, I can't really think of any way I can improve myself."

"How about you stop being such a narcissistic piece of shit!" Tyler bellowed, knocking his chair over angrily as he stood. Matt took back what he had just thought, at the sight of Tyler's overreaction.

Standing, Matt checked through the window in the door to make sure there were nurses on standby, just in case things got violent. "Now Tyler..." He began. "You shouldn't say that kind of thing, Kol has a mental disorder just as much as you do."

"That's right, mate, you ought to be more considerate." Kol smiled wolfishly at his roommate, and Matt wanted nothing more than for him to shut up. But that didn't happen. "It also seems that you have broken the goal you set, oh, maybe fifty seconds ago."

With his hands fisted by his sides, Tyler towered over Kol, who didn't even flinch. "That's where you're wrong, mate, I said I don't want to have violent outbursts. So I haven't broken my goal." He paused. "But I'm about to."

And Tyler lunged forward and grabbed onto Kol, punches, kicks, and hits of aggression and defense were being hurled out, and they were on the floor. Matt clapped his hands in horror to grab the attention of the nurses, as the other patients jumped out of their seats and away from the fighting pair. Thankfully, they came quick enough, and subdued Tyler, who was over Kol throwing punch after punch as Kol tried in vain to stop him.

Once the nurses carried Tyler away, Kol laid on the floor, moaning in pain. Matt ran to his side and knelt down, attempting to attend to his injuries. "My face… my handsome face…" Kol groaned hoarsely, causing Rebekah to snort loudly, unsympathetic, muttering, "Typical", to her blonde brother who stood besides her, watching with a skeptical expression on his face.

"Don't look at me! Call 911!" Kol continued on, now shrieking loudly and shielding his face with his hands as he curled up into a fetal position on the floor, ensuring that everyone who stood and watched couldn't see him. "I can't be seen like this… Nik! Get the surgeon who did Rebekah's nose on the phone!"

No longer amused and letting out a gasp, Rebekah held her hand over her nose. "Shut up you narcissistic piece of shit!" She hissed, for once not enjoying the stares she received.

"For once Bex think about me and not you!" Kol shouted back, his muffled voice guttural. "Think about my face!"

Klaus squinted his eyes and tilted his head to the side, still suspicious. "Kol, what happened to you quoting Tina Fey saying that 'the most important rule of beauty is: who cares?'" He questioned his brother with who was still hiding away.

Just then, two more nurses finally came to take Kol away to medical, as he cried, "Tina was wrong!"

Relieved, Matt seated himself, however the other patients still stood uncertainly behind their chairs. "You can sit, guys, it's fine!" He exclaimed invitingly.

Reluctantly, Caroline and Elena returned to their seats, but the rest remained standing.

"What's going to happen to Tyler?" Bonnie asked with a hint of urgency in her voice.

Matt licked his lips. "Um…" He started, knowing exactly what the answer to it was, but unsure of whether he should tell her or not, because she, as well as the others, might not like the answer. However, he decided to be truthful, because it was better to be honest now rather than have them all find out later. "He will probably be transferred to ward D for a while."

Pursing her lips, Bonnie crossed her arms and sat back down in her seat, staring into the distance thoughtfully. Matt glanced around at the others, and it seemed no one was particularly bothered at this answer, but for Klaus, who looked relatively agitated, drumming his fingers at his sides and glaring at Bonnie distrustfully.

"Okay, everyone come on, lets resume." Matt announced, yet they all remained standing, hesitantly looking to one another. "What's wrong?" He questioned, confused as to why they weren't sitting.

When no one spoke, Rebekah stepped forward, sighing dramatically. "Honestly, Doctor Matt, you can't expect me to just go back to this group therapy session when I have just watched my brother be beaten within an inch of his life!" She cried out, gripping the fabric of her shirt that laid above her heart.

Matt frowned, and looking at the small drops of blood on the floor, shook his head thinking 'Stupid, stupid, stupid'. What was he thinking of trying to continue on with the session after the fight, they were mentally unstable people, and he knew he couldn't try pushing them too hard when it was only the beginning.

"You can't expect me to talk about my goals in life when a puddle of blood is right on the floor, constantly reminding me of my brothers assault!" She continued on, but Matt understood the message.

"Okay, okay, I get it." He muttered, looking around at all the faces. "The session is cancelled, you can all go."

And Matt stood, gathering his own papers up, and turning around, he was met with the eager face of Caroline Forbes. "Do we have to go to our dorms, or are we allowed to go to the common room?" She asked excitedly.

Matt couldn't help but feel offended over the fact that she, along with everyone else who smiled and chattered happily as they left, was so thrilled the meeting had ended prematurely. "You may go to the common room." He replied flatly, already planning ahead what he could do to try and make the group gatherings more enjoyable for everyone. Including himself.

Reply To Guest: Yes, I know that they don't do character tags per chapter and that I'm changing the tags for the whole story. I noted in the first chapter of the story that because the story doesn't really have four main characters, I would change the character tags every update to correlate with the characters the newest update is focusing on. But thank you for trying to help me anyway. X

I hope you enjoyed the chapter! I am so appreciative of everyone who has followed and favorited the story so far, your support means more to me than you can know. If possible, please review and tell me your thoughts and feelings, it helps me a lot when I'm writing and struggling for inspiration and motivation. Follow and/or favorite if you want to be alerted about future updates, and thank you so so so much for reading! X

Next Chapter - We'll see some of what Kai is up to in ward D. As well as that, we will see some familiar faces who will definitely become more prevalent in the story. Then, we will find out that there might be more to the fight between Tyler and Kol than meets the eye...